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Alive and Well in The Second Half

Category Archives: Military Families

Two years ago I posted about my My Weekend with the Monks at my first Silent Retreat. Still recovering from pneumonia, I missed last year’s retreat, and looked forward to returning this year. (Especially after being in Sin City earlier in the week.) I again enlisted my quiet buddy Louise as roommate, and last Friday we were off.

Although the retreat is always brief, there is no agenda, I expect very little and very little is expected of me, I find it astounding how much I am affected. I took my laptop, my Kindle, and several magazines, just in case, but barely touched any of them. Instead, God met me in unexpected, and completely surprising, ways.

My first shock was to find among my fellow participants at the retreat six young military veterans, three men and three women. Our church supports the Veterans Resource Center at Pasadena City College, and these six were given scholarships to attend the retreat. I found their presence puzzling, as they were about the same age as my son, and I could not imagine him attending a silent retreat. (I didn’t get the courage or feel the need until I was well over 50.) One of the young men told me that one of the other vets attended the silent retreat last year and enjoyed it so much that he talked the rest of them into attending with him this year.

The first night, before we went into our silence, we each offered a word to express our hope for the retreat. My word was “space,” in that my personal work during the Lenten season has been to embrace the new space in my life, including loneliness and solitude.

Meanwhile, I hadn’t considered this when I signed up for the retreat, but Friday was the 14th anniversary of my stepson’s death, and I arrived with a heavy heart. In feeling pangs of sadness for my stepson, I also found myself missing my younger son who is currently out of state busy with his military training.

The beauty and solitude of the High Desert. Looking down on the Monastery from the Cemetery

On Saturday morning, I decided to take a hike up to the cemetery and spend some time in quiet reflection. After making it up the hill, I arrived to find the young vets huddled together on a bench, solemnly looking out over the rows of cross markers. As I found a spot, nearby but a respectful distance away, to sit and contemplate, I increasingly felt a sense of comfort in being with these young people. I wondered about the buddies they no doubt lost during their deployments. Despite their youth, who else would understand what it felt like to suddenly and traumatically lose someone close to them, someone too young? In that respect, I felt I was with kindred spirits, even though not a word was exchanged between us.

A poignant scene at the monk’s cemetery – one of the young military veterans resting on the “altar” contemplating the landscape in solitude

One of the activities for the weekend was the opportunity to paint a wooden birdhouse (they were tied to a theme for the retreat). On Friday, I picked out the one I wanted, and after lunch on Saturday, I headed over to the main room to work on it. When I arrived, I found the three young male vets sitting around the table painting their birdhouses! I briefly thought about setting up at a smaller table so as not to disturb them, but decided to join them. They graciously made a space for me, and I spent the next 90 minutes wordlessly but blissfully painting birdhouses with three strapping young men. I realized that God had lent me three “sons” for the day to soothe my yearning.

Because of the gracious provision of balm for my grief and aching, I was free to more fully explore my interior space during the weekend. I walked and napped and read, and found myself curiously drawn to books I found on Celtic wisdom and Irish poetry. The silence this time around felt like an old friend, welcome and comfortable.

My final love “wink” from God came on Sunday morning, when I headed back up to cemetery. I had previously noticed a grave marker for a monk whose birthday (month and day) was the same as my son’s. When I looked again, I noticed that the date of death (month and day) was the same as my stepson’s.

It was incredible how quickly time sped by over the course of the weekend. I didn’t experience any dramatic burning bush or road to Damascus encounters, but felt powerfully and deeply cared for and restored as I headed home. Once we could talk again, I tried to express my gratitude to the young veterans. I hugged them all and awkwardly explained to one (a former Army tank driver) how he and his friends had been such a comfort, to which he replied, “Thank you, Ma’am. Glad we could help.”

This week I turned fifty-seven and a half. When I was growing up, our family celebrated half-birthdays. The half-birthday honoree was allowed to pick his or her dinner of choice, and I always chose hot dogs and chocolate milk.

My half-birthday dinner of choice.A plain hot dog.

The half-birthday celebration was particularly important to me, since my birthday is in early August, a terrible time for a kid in a Navy family. We were almost always either in the process of moving to, or had just arrived, someplace new. In either case, my hopes for a fancy birthday party with friends, which is all I ever wanted (that, and a new Barbie), were constantly thwarted.

Looking back, I’m pretty sure my mother concocted the half-birthday tradition just for me, mainly to mitigate her guilt over my lack of fancy birthday parties with friends, knowing how gypped I felt. My brothers didn’t seem quite as taken with the half-birthday idea as I was. And the whole family made, in hindsight, a suspiciously over-enthusiastic celebration out of my half-birthday. I suspect they were all in cahoots with my mother, forced to be cheery under severe threat of retribution.

In any event, I enjoyed my half-birthday hot dogs, and to this day, I still keep half-birthdays on my calendar – my husband’s, my son’s, and mine. Not that we do anything special, but I still smile when I see a half-birthday on the calendar.

My half-birthday drink of choice.Milk with Bosco chocolate syrup.

Until this year. I looked at my calendar this week, and saw that I am now fifty-seven and a half. Holy you-know-what! I am not only halfway between fifty-seven and fifty-eight, but I am halfway between fifty-five and SIXTY!

In my mind, fifty-five was cool. It meant I was eligible for early retirement, and still sounded relatively young. And what could be more hip than a financially independent, relatively young woman? I couldn’t wait to turn fifty-five! But now the years are flying by and I am swiftly approaching SIXTY. Try as I might, I doubt I’ll feel as snug about SIXTY as I did about fifty-five.

Coincidently, this week I read a post entitled The Old Woman I Want to Be on NotQuiteOld, a blog I enjoy following. Nancy Roman, the blogger, recently celebrated her sixty-fifth birthday, and reflects on the significance of this milestone and how she wants to live her remaining years. A sentiment in her post that particularly resonates with me is her fear of wasting time. She writes, “I want to make the most of whatever time I have left – and to enjoy that time. Maybe that still means television and shopping. But maybe not.”

I’ve increasingly noticed in myself that urgency to use my time wisely. This week, during an Ash Wednesday service, I unexpectedly decided to give up Facebook for Lent (and I’m not even Catholic), partly because I often find myself wasting time on it almost reflexively, and I want to make space for more intentional pursuits. (I’ll see if I can link this post to Facebook automatically so I don’t blow my vow on Day Two and enter the forbidden land!)

When I was young, time seemed to be an infinite commodity. I had endless new adventures and new stages of life to look forward to. Not so the older I get. Today I have the health, resources and time to do almost anything I want. I worked hard all my life to get to this point and I want to squeeze as much as I can out of every day. I am acutely aware that this stage is finite and I want to take full advantage of it while it lasts. This outlook may partly stem from my fairly recent experience as the child in charge of care for both of my parents at the end of their lives. I saw how quickly their lives changed when their health declined.

The flip side of this urgency to live as if I were on leave from death row is that, taken to its extreme, it can be crazy making. Not every day or moment can, or should be, filled with ultra-significant moments or experiences. Left to my own devices, I can easily fill our calendar with terrific events every day of the week, in the process wearing myself out and driving my husband mad. As Nancy quotes John Lennon in her post, sometimes “time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” It all comes down to finding that right balance.

With that, I think that I will go waste some time and make myself a hot dog and some chocolate milk. Happy half-birthday to me!

We spent this Thanksgiving with our son (my only child) in Florida. He graduated from the Naval Academy in May and is now waiting to start flight training. I am therefore passing into yet another new stage of parenting, having an adult college-educated son who is completely independent. He has an apartment, a car and a job. He really doesn’t need us for anything.

Looking back, the two hardest transitions for me were his first day of kindergarten and the first month after he left home for college. My husband had to peel me away from the front door of the elementary school when we dropped him off at kindergarten. I blubbered all the way home about this being “the beginning of the end.” The first month of his “Plebe Summer” at the Academy, I missed him terribly. Our house and lives suddenly became strangely quiet, and I found myself pacing anxiously around the house and staring at his empty room. I physically ached from the loss of his everyday company.

Somewhere around the beginning of his senior year at the Academy, long after finally and happily settling into my role as USNA Mom, I began to feel a pit in my stomach, knowing that my son would soon be leaving the relatively safe Academy environment (that I had grown to love) and that his chosen career would become increasingly dangerous as he pursues his future training and then faces prospective deployments. After we said good-bye this past May, following his graduation, we knew we might not see him again until Christmas. I anticipated another tough adjustment, but I have to say, so far this stage has been much easier than I thought. I feel surprisingly at peace being less actively involved in his life.

I believe there gradually comes a point in the parenting relationship, where both our kids and we realize that it is us (the parents) that yearn for more time with them (the kids) than they yearn for with us. The early to mid twenties is also an important time for our kids to independently build their own identities. When I reflect on my own past with my own parents, I am reminded of the importance of “releasing” my son for his vital personal development. Besides, quite frankly, I find much in the life of a 22-year-old male somewhat unappealing, and often the “son” I miss hanging out with is the 8-year-old version (the one for whom I was the center of his universe). Added to that, my husband and I have built an active and enjoyable life together.

As for the future dangers in my son’s military career, I try not to think about it too much. I put his safety into God’s hands and remind myself that he is doing exactly what he’s always wanted to do and he will be well trained. (Of course, it is still relatively easy to ignore my fears while he is waiting around for training to begin, so check back in another year or two on that one!)

What is important to me personally, though, as I adjust to this stage of parenting, is to (1) maintain a connection with my son, and (2) know that he is okay. In my quest to sustain a connection, we frequently text each other, and routinely talk every Sunday by phone. Our Sunday calls, however, are often more interrogation than chat. Our son is not naturally talkative – he doesn’t hide information, but he doesn’t freely volunteer it either. Therefore, expertly framing and posing the right questions is a key skill when talking to him. When physically with him, however, we have long conversations (usually over meals) and I feel connected and caught up with his life. Since he had plenty of time on his hands (waiting for flight training to start) our Florida visit was pure gold. He was relaxed; we talked, laughed, and enjoyed several activities (and daytrips) together. He and I have always shared a sense of humor (that sometimes stumps even my husband) and he can make me laugh like few others. We are fortunate that our son still enjoys spending time with us (or at least cheerfully tolerates it). And though I admit I occasionally still long for my little boy, there are many parts of this stage of life that I enjoy even more. What a godsend to realize I’ve raised someone that I truly like!

A visit to my son’s workplace

Most importantly, I was able to do my “Mom’s Due Diligence” and feel content that my son is okay. I saw his apartment. It is attractive and in a great location. I met his two roommates. They are polite and respectful. I visited his workplace. I inspected his car. No scrapes or dings, and it has been conscientiously well maintained. I met some of his friends. They are solid buddies. I went to his volleyball and basketball games and chatted with his teammates. They are affable and supportive. He introduced us to his new girlfriend. She is adorable, funny and smart, and she clearly appreciates my son and treats him with respect.

I know I will have fewer such opportunities to pop into his life as his career progresses. The future may be uncertain, and although it may not always be so, for now, we are connected and the kid is alright. And so am I. And that is my Thanksgiving blessing.

There are a handful of days from my son’s life that stand out as extra special; days that I will never forget. He’s only 21, so, God willing, there will be many more, but as of now it is a small, cherished collection. I’ll never forget the day he was born. The day he started kindergarten. The day his high school basketball team unexpectedly won the CIF championship. The day he received his appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.

Yesterday was a day to add to the collection. It was Service Selection Day at USNA, the day that my son, along with the rest of the senior class, learned what their jobs in the military would be after graduation. They submitted their requests at the beginning of this year, and the Navy tries to honor them as much as possible, but nothing is guaranteed. Senior naval officers consider Midshipmen performance and aptitude as well as the needs of the Navy in determining assignments. There is a great deal of anxiety and tension leading up to this day. For some, this is the culmination of years of hard work leading to a hoped-for realization of a specific goal.

My son has wanted to be a pilot since he was about four years old, and a Navy pilot since about ten. It was to achieve this goal that he applied for and won an Appointment to Annapolis. At the beginning of this year, he formally requested Navy Pilot as his first choice service selection.

Since he’s a son (and not a daughter) there was, quite typically, not a lot of conversation around Service Selection Day. He mentioned the date in passing several weeks ago, and I promptly put it on my calendar (in case he forgot to tell us and we had to ask what he would be doing the next five years.) But as the date approached, I sensed it was looming large in his mind. Last Sunday night, he brought the topic up and admitted he was nervous. He had no reason to doubt he would get pilot, but said he would be relieved to have the paper in hand. He said he would find out about 10 AM our time on Thursday.

So, here’s how Service Selection Day actually went down in our house. On Thursday morning, our cleaning lady was coming and we were rushing around getting the house ready. At around 8:30 AM, I noticed on Facebook that there was going to be a video feed of Service Selection Day for my son’s Company. So, I excitedly fumbled around on the computer and got a video feed of the empty Company ward room. While waiting for things to get going, we went back to getting the house ready. Finally, I saw a few guys file into the room on the screen and someone began talking about (as far as I could tell since it was garbled) their pay package (which I figured was the intro to Service Selection). I saw one of my son’s friends on the screen so I texted him to say I couldn’t really understand what anyone was saying in the video feed. Then I went back to the house.

Then my son called my husband’s cell phone, and my husband was trying to get my son on speaker and he ran to the computer to see if we could see him, and he was yelling into the phone that we had the ward room on the screen and that he should go in and we would be able to see him once Service Selection started. Meanwhile, my son is saying “Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad………DAD!, DAD!, DAD!……and finally, DAAAAAAAD!!!!!” And our son shouted, “I just got my Service Selection!” And we both said “What?!” And I said something about it not being 10:00 AM so how could he get his service selection already, and how come he wasn’t on the video feed? And then we both stopped and listened and then we heard that utter joy, that utter excitement in his voice as he continued. “I have good news!” We held our breath. “I got NAVY PILOT!!!!!!” I just remember screaming and jumping and hugging and crying a little bit. But mostly, I was incredibly relieved and happy.

The newly selected Navy Pilots from 29th Company

After we hung up, I realized we were viewing the wrong video feed. We were watching an old session about their retirement program. And when we tried to watch a replay of the Service Selection video, we saw some of our son’s Company-mates, but not him. There had been a problem with the video feed and half of the session was not captured. But, you know, it wasn’t important. We saw how the process worked and some of his friends getting their service assignments. And hearing our son’s excited voice on the phone was pure gold.

I fired off several texts and messages with the big news and then headed over to my Gentle Yoga class. Which was absolutely the wrong place for me to go right then. I was as amped up as if I’d downed 4 or 5 Red Bulls, and trying to “center” myself and “breathe” was almost impossible.. I really should have done Zumba or some other activity that would’ve allowed me to jump and dance and sing, because that’s what I really needed to do.

Twenty-four hours later, I’m still amped up. I can sometimes let the “What If’s” cause me great anxiety, and the “What if he doesn’t get pilot” was especially distressing to consider. So I am feeling relief. I am extremely grateful that one of any mom’s worse nightmares – her child suffering a crushing disappointment – did not come to pass. But, more than that, I take great joy in seeing my son achieve an important step toward his dream. Unlike grade school, where my husband and I were right there to provide assistance, prodding and guidance, this achievement was due entirely to his own efforts. I could not be more proud.

Of course, there are more trials, tests and challenges ahead before the ultimate goal of Navy Jet Pilot is achieved. But now is not the time to worry about tomorrow, because I am content to savor this moment and cherish this day.

My husband and I spent Veterans Day 2013 in Annapolis, MD. Both Veterans Day and Annapolis hold great personal significance for me. My father was an Annapolis graduate who served a 30-year career as naval officer; ultimately a Navy captain and dentist, he was a Korean and Vietnam War veteran. He passed away on Veterans Day 2005. My husband is a retired naval officer and aviator, also an Annapolis graduate and Vietnam War veteran. I met my husband in northern Virginia at the tail end of his military career, while at his last duty station. Our son is a current Midshipman at the Naval Academy and now lives in Annapolis.

Veterans Day in Annapolis – surrounded by our past and future military leaders

It was the confluence of these factors that made this past Veterans Day in Annapolis a reflective, emotional experience for me. In the past 2-½ years since my son left home for the Academy I have been given a remarkable, eye-opening and at times unwelcome education on military life. I thought being a Navy Mom would be relatively easy since I grew up in a Navy household and we moved from Navy town to Navy town, always surrounded by other military families. I was used to the vernacular, the uniforms, and the way of life. I still feel at home when on a Navy base. My mother made being a Navy wife, with all the moves and separations and challenges, look easy. She was incredibly organized and competent, and running our home efficiently was her talent and passion. I felt I knew and understood the pitfalls of a military family more than most.

But I was never an active duty Navy wife, and it’s a whole new ball of wax sending your child off to the military. I have come to a greater appreciation of the hardships military families face, although I fully realize I have thus far only peeked in the door. Any military “education” I’ve obtained as the daughter of a Navy captain or the mother of a midshipman is still at the preschool level compared to lessons borne by other military families. The fundamental shift for me in the past 2-½ years has been emotional, in that I am now the parent of one of the 2% of America’s sons and daughters that have committed themselves to defend our country in battle and have thus placed themselves in harms way. Non-military families are genuinely thankful and appreciative for others military service but it is impossible to fully understand (I know I didn’t) without that very real potential personal sacrifice. (I wonder if compulsory military service for our young people should be seriously considered and would be a greater deterrent to war, but that’s a separate discussion).

Our son is my only child and we were intensely involved in every aspect of his upbringing. He is one of the two most precious people in my life. But two weeks after his high school graduation, we accompanied him to Annapolis for Induction Day, where he took his oath of office, after which pride turned to sadness when we left him to return home. It was arguably one of the hardest things either my son or I had ever done. He was left to complete “Plebe Summer” on his own, an intensive 6-week training regimen, with minimal contact with the outside world. For me, it was returning without him to an intensely quiet house, and the differences in routines, large and small that almost always included our son. At first, it felt like a death in the family, particularly with no contact with him for Plebe Summer. At a minimum, it was a pretty extreme college ‘launch”.

But our son survived Plebe summer just fine and so did we. And we have learned through our son’s USNA career that everything has a purpose. The Navy is teaching and preparing midshipmen for future naval careers. It is taking teenage superstars who have achieved much individual success and is molding them into a cohesive organization of young men and women who will work effectively as a team, by breaking them down and then building them back up. The breaking down part first involves separation from everything they are familiar with (including friends, family and surroundings), beginning with Plebe Summer and then building them back up through education, camaraderie and leadership within the Brigade. It does give me comfort that they are being expertly prepared for what may come. The Navy is also giving us family members an education in letting go. Difficult as it seemed at the time, Plebe summer was in fact a harmless practice “deployment” designed to teach us to separate from our kids.

Following successful completion of Plebe Summer and the entire Plebe (freshman) year that followed, our son has thrived at the Academy, and we have thoroughly enjoyed his time at USNA. We joined the local Annapolis Parents Club and have met and befriended other Navy parents who we find to be, without exception, salt of the earth folk. I am on Facebook and chat pages for USNA parents. There is an amazing support system and bond amongst military families precisely because of the unique journey we have found ourselves on. We have visited Annapolis often for football games and visits. We have watched our son grow in confidence and abilities. Now that he is a junior, he is taking on more leadership responsibilities. A strong and confident young man has replaced that nervous boy that we shipped off two years ago. I have never been more proud.

But I know that the Academy is a relatively safe place preparing him for a very dangerous world. I know that our experience thus far has been deceptively comfortable. As his graduation next year looms, my thoughts increasingly turn to the next steps in the journey, when he begins professional training (e.g., flight school if he becomes an aviator) and later deployment. This will then be the real world with real dangers and I will be forced to fully open that door.

Our recent travel to Normandy, where I grieved the loss of so many other sons, our association with other Navy and Marine parents, many of whom are now in the deployment phase of their sons’ and daughters’ careers, our increased exposure to the military on our numerous trips to Annapolis, a growing sense of what lays ahead for us – all of these have combined to instill in me a deep respect for the military families who have come before me. I connect more emotionally now to my father’s career with a spouse and three children at home, my mother as a military spouse managing a household on her own, my husband who during his active duty career lost fellow aviators in battle, and the countless military families across the country who bear their burdens daily.

I recently asked both my husband and son how a midshipman feels about his or her potential future involvement in war. I wondered – is the prospect something to be feared, to be welcomed or something else? Both said that war is part of their commitment, something they train for and are prepared for, and which they do not fear. My son mentioned that so many people thank him for his service that he and his classmates feel an obligation to actually serve. Many of our Annapolis Parents Club friends who now have deployed sons or daughters describe an intense mix of pride and fear. They tell me they can’t dwell on the dangers their kids are facing, but the gnawing fear in the stomach is never far away. After much reflection this past Veterans Day, I would like to personally salute and thank our military families past and present for their bravery and sacrifice. I admire them more than ever. That small kernel of anxiety that is just beginning to form in my stomach pales in comparison to the enormous pressures, difficulties and fears that remain their constant companions. And in the end, I rely on our Heavenly Father for comfort and protection and come back to the words of “Eternal Father” also known as the Navy Hymn:

“Eternal Father, strong to save. Whose arm hath bound the restless wave. Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep, Its own appointed limits keep; Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee, For those in peril on the sea. Amen”